Queensland is set to fall a whopping 96,000 homes short of its 2029 national target in a race against the clock to fix the housing crisis, a new report reveals.
Under the National Housing Accord, 247,000 homes are needed to be built in the next four years, yet only 151,000 are expected to be delivered, according to a new Property Council of Australia report released Tuesday.
The shortfall is the largest in the country after News South Wales, which still needs to build 185,000 homes to meet its 375,000 target.
Queensland is 96,000 homes short of its national housing target, a new report reveals.
Property Council Queensland executive director Jess Caire said she hoped the data would serve as a “rallying cry” for the Crisafulli government and local councils to address the issues making the cost and complexity of housing development worse.
“Initiatives such as the re-instatement of the Queensland Productivity Commission, changes to stamp duty for first home buyers to incentivise new builds, and Brisbane City Council’s work to alleviate the cost of delivering car parking in well located areas are all welcome initiatives,” Ms Caire said.
“Now, there is an opportunity to build upon this momentum and adjust Queensland’s foreign tax settings, so that they work for Queensland and attract much needed investment instead of deterring it.
![Property Council](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1280 720"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Property Council of Australia Queensland Executive Director Jess Caire. Picture: David Clark
“The good news is, if we are able to successfully increase supply and bridge this gap, it could help save Queensland renters $80 dollars per week.”
If Queensland was to keep up with its build target, the research by the Property Council shows it could curb home price growth by a tenth of a per cent per year until 2029.
The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal 35,727 new builds were approved across Queensland in the 12 months to January — well shy of the 50,000 expected.
Master Builders Queensland CEO Paul Bidwell said the state government had made some headway in reducing red tape, but those efforts were yet to translate into bricks and mortar.
“We applauded the Building Reg Reno announcement in February, with steps including a freeze on the unworkable Project Trust Accounts system, and more recently, the scrapping of unnecessary financial reporting for around 50,000 small businesses, but this is only part of the story and change won’t happen overnight,” Mr Bidwell said.
Master Builders QLD chief executive officer Paul Bidwell.
“We now have the freshly reinstated Queensland Productivity Commission, which will spotlight our industry, and home in on the challenges hampering the delivery of low-rise housing, and large unit developments.
“From scrapping the already-frozen Best Practice Industry Conditions and Project Trust Accounts, to addressing barriers to more workers joining our industry as newcomers or from interstate; and making the Queensland Building and Construction Commission operate as a more balanced and robust regulator, these are issues we have long advocated on.”
It comes as new research from the Australia Institute has found it takes more than 10 years to save a 15 per cent deposit for a home in Brisbane.
Ten years after former Treasurer Joe Hockey advised Australians to get ‘a good job that pays good money’ to buy a house, the analysis reveals a Brisbane homebuyer would still be $58,699 short of a deposit if they had started saving in 2015.
Queensland is well behind its target to help build 1.2m homes by 2029 nationally.
The Australia Institute’s chief economist Greg Jericho said rising house prices after the Covid-19 pandemic meant Brisbane buyers were unable to close the affordability gap.
“It seemed people were making pretty good progress, and then around 2020-2021 when the house prices went up, they basically started treading water,” Dr Jericho said.
As the federal election approaches, Dr Jericho said serious conversations needed to be had about housing, pointing to the capital gains tax and negative gearing as systems needing reform.
“The settings that we have at the moment, that have been in place for 25 years now, are not working — in fact, they’re making things worse,” he said.
He added that public housing, which used to take up 10 to 15 per cent of new housing builds, now made up around 2 per cent of the market.
“The public sector has just departed the field,” he said. “We have a system that is pretty much driven all by the private sector.”
Queensland continues to face a severe housing crisis characterised by high home prices and rents and rents, a shortage of affordable housing, and a growing number of people experiencing homelessness, exacerbated by population growth and construction delays.
With cost of living an increasing strain, more and more families are being forced on to the streets, with a lack of affordable housing solutions as a safety net.
Last week, Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner revealed he would shut down homeless camps across the city, including at Musgrave Park and Kurilpa Point, in a bid to restore safety to parks.
